Compassion is like happiness. Obviously a great good. And yet, I think it is also like happiness in another way. Its realisation is far more tricky than perhaps first meets the eye. A number of thoughts came to mind as I tried to think it through.

Take the business of practising compassion. One can clearly will oneself to do a kindness here, offer a comforting word there. A fraction of the world would be a better place for it. But a concern came to my mind that reaching out might become like the injunction to eat five pieces of fruit'n'veg a day. It becomes a burden, one that you chastise yourself for not fulfilling. Your efforts to show compassion to others become a regular reprimand to yourself.

There is also the danger of tokenism. One act of compassion is used, perhaps unconsciously, to alleviate the guilt of the many quietly abusive acts that can fill an average working day. Or, do I visit my uncle in the care home because I care for him or because I feel secret remorse for his being there in the first place?

This is all counterproductive, if you follow Gandhi's line of thought that you must be the change that you want to see in the world. So I have the sense that being compassionate towards others requires being compassionate towards yourself too: serious intent, light touch.

To develop the thought further, you might say that the aficionados of compassion possess a certain freedom with themselves. I think this is shown in the well-known story of the Good Samaritan. A priest and a Levite pass by on the other side of the road from the man who has been beaten by robbers, though there is no suggestion in the story that they are not compassionate people. Rather, they are constrained by their fear of a half-dead man. And who can blame them? A half-dead toddler, Wang Yue, was recently passed by on the streets of Guangdong by over a dozen people, provoking a moral crisis in China and concern around the world. What the Good Samaritan had was an inner freedom that trumped any fear. He wasn't tied by convention, or fright, or lack of time. He was free to respond to another human being. Am I that free?

The risks associated with being kind are, in fact, multiple. Will an unexpected act be unwelcome or aggressive? Might it be thought an intrusion or demeaning? Can you judge accurately whether it's appropriate? Am I free enough to take these risks? Also, there's an art to receiving acts of compassion: you mustn't read too much into a warm smile or the squeeze of a hand!

There are interesting parallels between these concerns and the research on empathy. Empathy too is often taken to be an unalloyed good thing. And yet, as Colin Frith, emeritus professor at UCL, recently told me, an empathic feeling might as easily lead to an unkind response of fight or flight as a good response of compassion. Feeling viscerally upset by someone else's pain might make you turn your back. Alternatively, collective empathy with my in-group can lead to collective animosity towards those perceived as others. Such empathy powers war. The risk is that my compassion for some leads to self-righteous anger at others.

All that said, compassion has to start somewhere. And to a certain extent it seems possible to train oneself by attempting to form habits of reaching out. Perhaps the best advice is to aim high but start small. For it seems to me that compassion is really aimed at something big and difficult – nothing less than a transformation of your life and yourself. A good question to ask is whether you really want that to happen.

Comments

Thanks for the CIF link; I won't be responding there as I have been banned ("pre-moderated", as they term it, but the effect on debate is the same. Given that this was for remonstrating with the mods over harsh treatment of other contributors, I deserve some compassion at least!)

A few thoughts here anyway. Is compassion a great good? Could things be better organised if we were somehow biologically pre-programmed to respond appropriately to the sufferings of others, without experiencing the emotions involved? This raises the issue of whether it is the outcome of compassion which is valuable ("A fraction of the world would be a better place for it...") or the fellow-feeling itself, which ties us back into the world and reminds us of our common origins and fate. I favour the latter, in that our contribution to lessening suffering is always going to be infinitesimally small, whereas our good will can be boundless.

The Buddhist conception of Karuna is useful, as it resolves the problem of compassion to oneself. The suffering is impersonal, so the concern we have towards our own sufferings is as valuable and good as any other. The only danger is falling into the nearby trap of self-pity. But feeling upset by the pain of another is fine. We should feel compassion towards the other in pain, and ourselves for failing to measure up to standards we might have. This is what the Buddha meant when he said that the Brahma Viharas (Love, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity) should be "boundless". They should be indiscriminate as to the beings we cultivate it towards. The other useful concept here is "Anukampa", which is the feeling that the Buddha had towards other sentient beings which motivated him to teach. It roughly translates as "trembling with", or "resonating with", and I have always liked the linking of these two ideas of "trembling" and "resonating".

It says that lovers' compassion is always selfish in that when you really love someone or are 'in love' you only ever think about them (and their suffering) in relation to yourself (and your own suffering). It really made me pause for thought!

Mark - I wrote the following (this is a slightly edited version) on Cif Belief, but no-one goes into anything satisfactorily on that site:

In thinking of Socrates' saying that knowledge and virtue are the same thing - (not knowledge in the usual sense of the word, as memory for example, or justified true belief; but knowledge as insight) - one could consider compassion essentially as an act of insight, of non-verbal or direct understanding of the mind - of the mind's own nature -, which has nothing (or very little) to do with conscious will or decision-making processes.

In the same way Socrates is also meant to have said that a person cannot "knowingly" (in the sense of through "understanding") act selfishly or harmfully, and that harmful or "wrong" actions spring from an essential ignorance of the whole context of action: or, to put it differently, that "wrong" actions are the consequence of a lack of awareness.

It is interesting to consider that compassion or virtue may be synonyms for awareness, and that a truly (or holistically) aware mind is of its very nature compassionate and vituous, because then the whole problem becomes one of freeing the mind (oneself) from this ignorance of inattention - through awareness.

Compassion (as distinct from kindly actions, pity, charitable or philanthropic activities or exercises of the will) and insight (the brain's own residual or potential intelligence, which isn't personal) may be one and the same thing. This takes the emphasis away from "doing good", and puts the chief value on "right understanding" (which isn't merely verbal, intellectual or based on knowledge as memory): in-other-words, on awareness and attention (of the body, emotion, the thought-process, relationship and the whole context of one's actions).

Another aspect of this discussion about compassion is the reflection that it must be borne out of an intelligent response to the total situation of the world: it isn't just a superficial reaction to a moment of being aware of poverty or a sick relative, a particular social injustice or the extinction of a species of animal, and so on - it is a holistic response of one's whole being to the facts of human suffering, ignorance, conflict, and their repercussions on animals, ecosystems and the whole context of our existence on the planet.

Compassion considered at the level of personal reactions and decisions is a very superfical or partial activity, but the compassion of total involvement - "passion for all" - is demanding on one's undivided attention (physical, psychological, mental, emotional - right through). This is an impersonal state, a "love as strong as death".

However, whether one can have this quality of compassion without clearing up one's ignorance of oneself, without putting aside one's habitual momentum of self-interest (through understanding instead of blind will), is another matter altogether.

Speaking for myself, I see that my life is mostly caught-up in this stream of self-interest, and there is very little real compassion in it at all.

Matthew 10:19-20: When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

That is, don't speak out of "personal reactions" but let "total involvement" in the situation speak through you. Not from the law of preconceived notions, but from emersion in the now. The specific context here is being delivered to the courts and dragged before governors; I can relate that to what Mark (V.!) is saying here about fears of how our acting out of compassion will resonate in others' eyes.

I agree with you on the fellow-feeling entirely. Compassion must
stem, at least in part, from a deep knowledge of one’s own limitations, and
that opens us to others, and God. I like the idea of resonating within too,
though not sure about the impersonal nature of suffering. That strikes me as at
risk of being a strategy for distancing yourself from your own suffering – ‘the
suffering is not me’ – and so at risk of trying to deny the suffering condition
of humanity.

James – Thanks for the thought on compassion as awareness
too. That makes sense, yes: knowledge by acquaintance, is another way it is
sometimes put. Though again, I’d be hesitant about the ‘impersonalising’ of
suffering. It reminds me of a remark to the effect that it is actually easier
to love the whole world than it is to love your next door neighbour (because
the whole world is abstract, your neighbour a real person.) Hence, Kierkegaard
makes a lot of the fact that the commandment is love your neighbour, not
humanity, say.

Quiet riot girl – I like Barthes’ book, though wonder if he’s
rather caught up in the modern divisions between egoism and altruism at that
point. There is really no such concern in Aristotle, for example: his concept
of human connectivity meant that there was no neat division between the two.

"That strikes me as at risk of being a strategy for distancing yourself from your own suffering – ‘the suffering is not me’ – and so at risk of trying to deny the suffering condition of humanity."

Well, the suffering is *not* me. If it were, as the man said, then it would be permanent, and under my control. But it is real, nevertheless. Just like, say, rain. It is not mine, but it is just as wet as if it were. The trick is, not to take it personally.

I believe that there are drives that constitute humanness that are stronger than self-interest. They are not qualitatively different from selfish desires; they are just larger. They represent concentric circles that emanate from the self: e.g. family, tribe, nation, world, and universe. The goal is to develop a deep and broad sense of compassion that includes oneself and also that leads to the greater satisfactions involved in being a constructive participant in realities larger than what is strictly in one’s own personal interest.

One the main problems of contemporary society is the kind of cynicism that shuts us off from those parts of our character that are larger than the pursuit of selfish gains. This cynicism is also the main problem that afflicts many individuals. Living a life that is cut off from the best in oneself is an impoverished existence. That cynicism has personal as well as social consequences leads to a vicious circle. If I don’t know who to find satisfaction in being a healthy participant in the world I live in, I become isolated and desperately hoard resources, a move that only exacerbates the problem and increases the desire for more hoarding.

The problem that we need to solve is our poor framing of what it means to be human and how to best go about finding satisfaction.

Despite my joy for all the blessings for which I am thankful, an
involuntary ruminating of this season certainly has its down side.
When the first people I knew who had come down with Kaposi's Sarcoma,
my funny and sociable neighbors Steve and Norm, waved and yelled hello
to me from afar while I was on a sidewalk with my brother Bob and his
wife Jill, I reticently waved and then said to Jill, "I'll tell you
later" when she asked who they were. I never told her later. We as a
family were living through the last week of our mother's year-long
cancer stricken life, Bob & Jill having just flown into Philadelphia
from San Antonio. This occurred in 1983, the 2nd year during which I
wondered in each early morning after my relentless nightmares, as well
as when my daily demands of law school and part-time law-firm work
would thankfully marginalize the Grim Reaper's intrusions: Would I,
too, somehow mysteriously awaken one day to a death sentence of
unknown authorship? I came to learn later that my neighbors outlived
my Mom by about two months, passing away within days of one another.
The test to discover HIV didn't arrive until the late summer of 1985.
My straight friend, Brian, ever so bravely beyond his envelope of
comfort, offered to accompany me to my first test date. Concerned with
how I might mishandle the immense ramifications of the result, I
assured Brian that I could pull it off on my own. Thankfully, for
then, I did not yet suffer from survivor's guilt when the test results
came out "negative." It has always troubled me, though, that the cold
science of medicine would label non-infection by HIV as a "negative"
result. As the multitude of lost lives and the passage of deadly years
amassed, I learned to think that "negative" was a positive thing for
me and my fellow fortunate gay guys.

What triggered these latest PTSD induced tear drenched recollections
was this beautifully thoughtful essay by one of my favorite bloggers:

What are the "non-price" costs of empathy, as an economist might
describe them? What are the monetary costs of empathy, for that
matter?

It really does beset me that I feel compelled to relate these memories
of what the HIV Epidemic has meant to me, but to stay silent forever
would be to deprive my loved ones of whom I truly am because of this
influence. The folks I love would seem like strangers were they to
hide their sufferings from me. Despite occasional interactions with
you that may support the contrary, I have been irrevocably changed by
enduring and surviving this worldwide devastation, during a part of
which social pressures convinced me to remain silent. The paramount
lesson I have learned, however, is that any individual person who
crosses my path, no matter what race, age, gender, cultural style or
the beliefs they possess, there could be a hidden horror with which
they try their best to live their quotidian lives, even when they
might briefly collide with mine. Still, I lose my temper from time to
time. At overcoming that great shortcoming I have been lucky to be
coached by a few friends who have my best interests at heart.

I am indeed a very lucky person to have been given the gift of life of
which I could never have conceived the complexity and luxury of its
emotions.

Thanks endlessly for your affection and respect that far outweigh the
times you might have wanted to punch me in the nose!

What are you other than your awareness? Your body may change and deteriorate, your mind comes and goes, but without your awareness you are not. So if as James says compassion is awareness, and it is, and we are our awareness, as we are, then we are compassion itself. The only reality is compassion.

I got here by chance and I found this topic really interesting because I am truly fascinated about paradoxes of human existence and I see this issue of compassion as being somehow linked to this. Compassion is a virtue. This becomes questionable only because the human element gets involved. I said something about paradoxes. That is because if we think a lot about compassion issues we eventually conclude that human altruism is the most beautiful form of selfishness. Getting happy over someone else’s happiness implies of course feeling sympathy and empathy towards those who suffer. But to reach the point where the feeling is pure, honest and infallible means to want at all costs someone else’s happiness just in order to feel accomplished yourself…So I’m basically saying that being truly compassionate it’s exactly the same with running after your own wellbeing. So what does this mean? That compassion = selfishness? I know I am wrong. I want to be wrong. I like to think that self-loving and loving others can get in balance in one’s life and that all problems arise when we pay too much attention to one side, leaving the other at a disadvantage.

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